Back in 2008 there was a game called Spore, developed by Maxis. In this game you would start off existence as a tiny single celled bacterium and either feast on other fauna to get bigger, or chow down on flora. As you would get bigger, you could evolve new body parts to help out with your growth. From there on you would evolve through different phases of evolution until eventually you’d head out into space to conquer the universe. However, the initial part of the game was probably my absolute favourite. Bacter.io Evolution takes me back to that gameplay, which makes me very happy! Read what we thought in our Bacter.io Evolution review.

Platform Used For Bacter.io Evolution Review: iPad 2
Developer: Akadem GmbH
Genre: Indie, Action
Rating:

Bacter.io Evolution starts off by introducing you to controlling your bacterium. Using a familiar two handed control system, moving your bacterium around with a virtual joystick on the left of the screen, and activating your abilities by pressing on the right of the screen, Bacter.io Evolution is quite easy to pick up and play.

The aim of the game is to grow your bacterium by eating others or picking up powerups to go towards your growth bar. Once the growth bar is full, any health you may have lost will be fully restored and you will become larger.

Stats such as health, strength and speed can also be upgraded with every level of growth you progress. Health will make you more sturdy against attacks from other bacterium, strength will help you eat others more efficiently and speed lets you swim around faster.

Along with upgrading your stats, extra abilities can be acquired as you level up. These abilities can be activated during the game, but only one can be equipped at a time.

The tutorial does a good job at prompting you to go after other bacterium and the yellow powerups, but apart from that you’ll have to figure a lot out for yourself.

As I said previously, the whole game reminds me a lot of the initial stage in Spore which is great. Going after other bacterium and growing your own is heaps of fun, but I had quite a few problems playing Bacter.io Evolution continuously. Playing on an iPad 2, I experienced quite a high volume of crashes. I tried the usual tricks such as exiting the game and restarting it, turning the iPad off and on again, clearing the cache, uninstalling the app and reinstalling it. None of the fixes would help and the game would crash after about twenty seconds.

The fact that Bacter.io Evolution is so unstable is quite frustrating as I feel it’s a game I’d really enjoy playing for a long period of time. Having not really much story, it’s a relatively mindless game to play, so is really good if you want to wind down and just plain veg out.

Aesthetic Charm

Graphically speaking, Bacter.io Evolution is very simple but incorporates some really nice bright colours and visual effects. The background music is soothing and the sound effects aren’t pretentiously annoying.

The other bacterium can eventually take on other shapes as you progress through the levels and some of them are actually quite imaginative. Along with how they look, their abilities are also quite creative. Certainly adds a bit more challenge too.

Final Thoughts

Being a free-to-play game, I’m pleasantly surprised in-app purchases aren’t being thrust in your face constantly. What Akadem GmbH have pulled off is really something quite enjoyable to play, it’s just a shame after a while things start to feel a bit samey.

In my experience with all the game crashes, Bacter.io Evolution isn’t something I would recommend if you own an iPad 2. If you have something newer, by all means give it a go. If you’re after a game that mainly focusses on gameplay and expanding your arsenal, Bacter.io Evolution might be right up your alley. But if you like games that give you a decent story to follow, you might want to stay clear of this one.

Score

4 stars – familiar, fun, but a little bit samey

[schema type=”review” url=”https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/bacter.io-evolution-genetic/id1136200052?mt=8&at=11l32yZ” name=”Download Bacter.io Evolution” description=”Back in 2008 there was a game called Spore, developed by Maxis. In this game you would start off existence as a tiny single celled bacterium and either feast on other fauna to get bigger, or chow down on flora. As you would get bigger, you could evolve new body parts to help out with your growth. From there on you would evolve through different phases of evolution until eventually you’d head out into space to conquer the universe. However, the initial part of the game was probably my absolute favourite. Bacter.io Evolution takes me back to that gameplay, which makes me very happy!” rev_name=”Bacter.io Evolution Review” rev_body=”In my experience with all the game crashes, Bacter.io Evolution isn’t something I would recommend if you own an iPad 2. If you have something newer, by all means give it a go. If you’re after a game that mainly focusses on gameplay and expanding your arsenal, Bacter.io Evolution might be right up your alley. But if you like games that give you a decent story to follow, you might want to stay clear of this one.” author=”GameReviews AU” pubdate=”2016-09-20″ user_review=”4″ min_review=”1″ max_review=”5″ ]